


there is a going in my staying

by malrie



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Almyra (Fire Emblem), Coming of Age, Gen, Homecoming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-01-14
Packaged: 2021-03-18 13:20:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28743888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malrie/pseuds/malrie
Summary: Cyril is a part of Claude’s Alliance security detail on the return to the Almyran throne. They pass through a border town, where he begins to reconsider his place in the world.
Relationships: Cyril & Claude von Riegan
Comments: 8
Kudos: 25
Collections: Genuary 2021





	there is a going in my staying

**Author's Note:**

> Title is a slice from one of Khalil Gibran’s poems in [Sand and Foam](http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jrcole/gibran/sandfoam/sandfoam.htm): “And I say to both my house and the road, ‘I have no past, nor have I a future. If I stay here, there is a going in my staying; and if I go there is a staying in my going. Only love and death will change all things.’”

Some time after they’d begun the trek over Fódlan’s Throat, the newly risen King of Almyra fell back from the forefront convoy to match pace with Cyril’s line. His wyvern’s wingspan was a monstrous width. With every beat, it scattered small dusty whirlwinds in its wake. Cyril felt his sinuses tickle and kicked his horse forward.

“So you camped with the foot soldiers yesterday!” His voice could barely be made out over the wagons and steeds cantering along, but Claude von Riegan knew how to be listened to when he wanted.

“What of it?” Cyril cried back, irritated at the lack of urgency in this conversation.

“There was plenty of room inside,” replied Claude, still yelling over the sound of his flying beast. “Dear Hilda was asking for your whereabouts!”

Cyril would’ve rather been torn apart by vicious Almyran Wyvern claws then step an inch back into the place he was first held captive. Even to have been on the House Goneril premises for less than a day managed to give him the shakes all throughout the night. He hadn’t slept. By the time the others woke, he’d already finished packing his mount.

“It was easier that way.”

“Easier?”

There were nuances to an explanation like this, aside from considering the twenty men and one king that Cyril was currently wedged between. So he said, not caring if it didn’t reach: “I’m not like you.”

He didn’t mean for it to come out the way it must have sounded. One glance upwards and Cyril cursed his carelessness. Despite it, the other man resumed character, regaling tales about the fattening dinner-breakfast Cyril surely was so sorry to have missed while he was playing hooky. He let his nose run miserably from the dust.

* * *

Towns nearest to the border were poverty-stricken and prone to invaders. Claude had insisted on restocking enough resources at House Goneril in order to prevent any layovers. It was practical thinking, but as they passed through the main road through the heart of settlement, Cyril could tell Claude only wanted to ease any burden of what came with being a border town.

Around mid-afternoon, Claude kneeled by a ring of thinly-dressed children and engaged with them, roping in other Alliance soldiers for a full team of kick-the-ball.

It crossed his mind that Cyril could have been born here. His memories of Almyra were nothing more than slivers of childhood dazes, sweating through undershirts and sniveling at his mother’s calves. That was where any consideration of his homeland started and ended. But being in this place now, surrounded by aged domed buildings and a sky so clear blue it was un-Fódlan, Cyril felt a familiarity itch beneath his hot skin.

The then Duke of House Riegan had been absent from the Leicester Alliance for an entire year until his return with a few men three months ago, this time as a monarch of the neighboring country. To say it was a surprise for everyone was an understatement; he made it in time to aid suppressing a small Fódlan skirmish and Archbishop Byleth nearly dropped the Sword of the Creator in genuine surprise.

Now twenty-two, Cyril had registered into Alliance ranks as soon as he left the Church, leaving soon after Shamir departed with Catherine. And with a new allegiance came new purpose, as his old master had put it. High King Khalid of the Venerable Almyra Nation required a security detail for the journey home, and someone had referred Cyril’s name on the Alliance manifest.

A worn-out ball knocked his ankle. Cyril looked up and saw Claude waving at him, sweating in his royal regalia. He said, in words Cyril hadn’t heard in perhaps a decade, “What are you waiting for? Join us!”

The local children erupted into peals of laughter, some maybe directed at Claude’s slight accent of their specific dialect. He didn’t look embarrassed, and rested his hands on his hips as he gathered his breath from playing.

“Look at you, gasping like an old man at your age,” Cyril replied in perfect regional inflection. He punted the ball back and forth with his feet. A child stopped giggling to stare. “Shall you be able to lead a country with a constitution as poor as yours, Your Excellency?”

Claude’s eyes brightened at his response, and Cyril tried not to shy away from it. “As long as my people are strong and healthy,” he said, patting a tiny girl’s head, “I need not worry.”

* * *

Had he chosen differently, Cyril would have lived the rest of his life without witnessing this particular sunset, spilling pink ink onto the pearl-white clouds. Most of the kids had scattered by now, running home for supper—aside from one young thing, so amazed by the soldiers’ sheathed swords that she hung a long branch to her waist. When she walked, it dragged lines into the dirt.

One lieutenant advised they head out before dusk matured and establish a camping ground outside the town. He looked to Cyril, saying, “Fetch him, would you?”

“Him” being Claude, and specifically Cyril because he knew the language. Feeling a little odd at being singled out and annoyed at his newfound retainer status, Cyril headed for the nearest lodging Claude had been dragged off to after the game. Not even in the nation he now ruled did Claude seem to exude any means of a domineering personality, which made him an easy target for village children and their whims.

This house, like the others, was made mostly of red sandstone, and rather handsome despite some wear. The door was wide open, welcoming the cooling air. Cyril stopped at the entrance, fraught with an emotion he couldn’t describe. It sealed his throat with something heavy, and it took much strength to only swallow.

He could see Claude at the dining table, speaking to a family with wide gestures. The others listened to him with rapt attention. Cyril wondered if Claude felt at home here, or if he ever wavered in his belonging. Much of the King-Duke was a mystery, but even with his scheming he knew to be kind, and in many cases that was enough.

“Will you not go in?”

Cyril startled, turning to see an older woman, her dark head scarf blowing in the wind. Her face was wrinkled and beautiful, and she examined Cyril curiously. It took a second until he realized that she had spoken in common Fódlan, slightly accented.

“I…” He didn’t look back. “I don’t want to be a bother.”

“How could you?” she asked. “You wear that country’s colors, as does our king, but like His Excellency—” Then she said something soft in old tongue, the kind they use most around the capital.

Cyril shook his head, unable to speak. He didn’t understand. Her Fódlan lilt was calm, vowels more pliant than a native speaker’s. She lifted a warm hand to his face, as if to comfort him. Cyril was shaking. His vision blurred from the touch.

“You are a part of us,” she translated. Cyril’s cheeks were wet now, flowing like rainfall. “Once you were lost, but you have found your way back. And we are here to welcome you home.”


End file.
